Spain Beyond the Circuit

Cáceres's northwest corner on the Portuguese border, where three villages speak a language of their own.

A granite gorge on the Duero, with villages built on the lip of it and pre-phylloxera vineyards behind.

Soria's roof: a working pine forest, a black glacial lake, and the source of the Duero.

A mountain range on the Lugo-León border, with slate villages and round thatched pallozas.

Three Cantabrian valleys of summer pasture, where families still move uphill with the cows.

The hot, flat east of La Rioja: vegetables, shoes, storks, and wine in volume.

A sheltered green basin under the Picos de Europa, with a monastery, a cable car and Cantabria's best cheese.

The dry, high Almería half of the Alpujarra, where Moorish water channels still irrigate the slopes.

Salamanca's mountain villages: dark stone, wooden balconies, and one town everyone already knows.

Chestnut and cork hills in northern Huelva, where the pigs eat acorns and Sevilla goes for the weekend.

Paprika, chestnut groves and cold mountain streams under the Gredos range.

Terraced valleys and slate villages in the mountains north of Extremadura, cut off for centuries.

High mountain valleys, working summer pastures and brown bears, an hour inland from the coast.

Western Asturias: watermills, knife workshops, slate hamlets and the greenest corner of the north.

Parallel ridges in eastern Cáceres where the geology is the sight, and a monastery town at the edge.

Galicia's quietest mountain: chestnut and oak forest, a fossil ridge, and villages of four houses.

Teruel's high country: walled medieval villages on rock, stone streets and long views.

Pine and sandstone high country in southwest Teruel, with the pink town of Albarracín at its centre.

Olive groves, gorges and medieval towns in the corner of Aragón that nobody crosses.